How to reach Courage Vape

VAPEMagazine.com:

Do you yourself vape and if so when did you start vaping and what was your greatest motivation to start vaping?:

Francis:

I do vape! To be completely honest I never thought I would confidently be saying that. My five-year-old daughter woke me up one morning and said, “dad I never want to lose you”. While she is too young to understand tobacco and the harm it was causing me; I created that parallel in myself and decided enough was enough! Vaping helped me turn my desire to get healthy for myself and my daughter, into a reality.

VAPEMagazine.com:

If you were a smoker, have you stayed true to vaping or have you ever returned to smoking? :

Francis:

I have stayed true to vaping. I have successfully staggered my nicotine levels quite rapidly.

VAPEMagazine.com:

How do you think vaping could be further improved so it is more like the feel of smoking?:

Francis:

In my mind that is a bit of a trick question. Part of the success in vaping is the similarities of the habitual fixations created by smoking. A cigarette in your hand one day can be a vaping device the next. I believe people need vaping to be like smoking initially, but I really do not like to compare the two. Vaping is something that you are doing consciously in an attempt to improve your health. Smoking is allowing yourself to concede to something that you know is tremendously harmful to yourself and those around you.

Ultimately my answer is that I do not think that “feeling more like smoking” is an improvement. Its vaping, but I understand what you are asking.

VAPEMagazine.com:

What do you find are the biggest misconceptions about vaping?:

Francis:

By far, the health concerns. I cannot definitively say down to a percentage how much safer vaping is that smoking. At this point in time in the vaping industry I think we can all come to an agreement that it is safer than smoking. Depending on where you look and whom you trust, you are able to find some pretty compelling statistics. You hear people throwing around the number 95% healthier quite often. It will of course take time and research to find out just how much better vaping is for you than smoking. Regardless, if the true numbers fall anywhere near those percentages then it will be easy to identify vaping as an astronomical improvement.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Francis:

You know when I first got into vaping I did what seemingly everyone else does. I tried every flavor, tried building my own coils, wanted the coolest mod. To each their own, but I am simple. I use a variety of SIGELEI mods that we have around the office which I pair with a SMOK TFV4 mini. I’ve grown quite fond of SMOK’s triple coils!

VAPEMagazine.com:

When did you start in the vape business?:

Francis:

We started our companies on January 1, 2014.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Why did you get into this vape business?:

Francis:

The primary reason was to help people through tobacco harm reduction. We love seeing people quit smoking. The highlight of our day is when we can see someone smash a pack of cigarettes and say okay lets do this!

VAPEMagazine.com:

What do enjoy most about working in the vaping industry?:

Francis:

The ability to be able to see the constant changing trends and the evolution of the industry.

VAPEMagazine.com:

What is it like to be in the gold rush days of vaping business?:

Francis:

A good adjective would be “unknown”. It is one of the more interesting things I have ever seen in my life. It’s a pretty remarkable feeling to be a pioneer in anything. The real gold for this business is in our ability to change the lives of generations to come for the better.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Do you have more than one vape business?:

Francis:

We do actually. I am speaking on behalf of myself here as the co-owner of Courage Vape. My business partners and I also own several other companies in the industry.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Are you interested in expanding your vape business and if so how would you expand it?:

Francis:

We make it a goal to expand and improve everyday. As with an industry it is logical to look to your peers and observe their success and come up with what does and does not work for you.

VAPEMagazine.com:

What’s the best advice you can give someone starting their own vape business?:

Francis:

Listen often. It is a consumer driven industry. You have to be open to what the consumer wants in any industry if you plan on being successful. I often compare experienced vapers to wine connoisseurs. They know exactly what they want and have the palate to match. You can constantly learn something from the consumers in the vaping industry.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Francis:

Eleven: 11 is our only flavor at this time. So of course that would be the bread winner for us!

VAPEMagazine.com:

Do you think there is anything the vape community can do to stop big tobacco from lobbying against open and free vape business?:

Francis:

I think they are doing it. Everyone is actively playing a role. The advocacy surrounding the vaping industry is the single biggest challenge to big tobacco in my life time. Big tobacco plays a role in this too. Lobbying against open and free vape business might as well be saying that your health comes second to our special interest. That would create a revolution, of which I think it already has.

VAPEMagazine.com:

How do you think the new FDA regulations will effect you and your vape business?:

Francis:

We can speculate all day long, but until that day comes we cannot say with any certainty. However, I am proud to speak of the integrity of Courage and our other companies. We feel we are well prepared for the future.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Would you be interested in joining the vaping community that is fighting for the rights of vaping and vaping businesses?:

Francis:

We are fighting for the vaping community every morning we unlock our doors and turn off our alarm system at our office.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Do you have favorite blogs and or reviewers that you trust?:

Francis:

We follow ECF and REDDIT a lot. There are also many great reviewers on YouTube. Some of my favorites include P. Busardo, Dimitri the Vaping Greek, and Indoor Smokers.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Where else can we find you hanging out on the web? :

Francis:

VAPEMagazine.com:

Can people connect with you on social media?:

Francis:

Absolutely. I think our customer base would say that we interact with them on a daily basis. More often than not, you will find us on our social media accounts commenting and interacting with the vaping community.

VAPEMagazine.com:

If you could get more involved with the vaping community socially, would you?:

Francis:

We are nothing without the vaping community. Our goals and dreams are only fulfilled through them. We welcome any way to become more involved socially.

VAPEMagazine.com:

With the new trend for (deep character development ) storytelling, would you be interest in an ongoing story about you and your vape business?:

Francis:

We welcome more detailed accounts of Courage Vape, our backstory, present goals, future goals, and in general how this all came to be.

VAPEMagazine.com:

How could the vaping community further help your business? :

Francis:

The easiest way for the vaping community to help our business would be for them to educate themselves on the endless research that goes into making a true premium eLiquid. You have a right to know what level of integrity went into making the eLiquid that you may be selecting. We know what kind of product we deliver to our consumers. It is the consumers job to be proactive and familiarize themselves with how and where their favorites juices are made. This alone would focus a bright light on the companies that are not only doing it right, but doing right by the customer. This is precisely why were are honored to be manufactured at Molecule Labs in an iso7 Clean lab.

VAPEMagazine.com:

Of all the things you’ve ever been asked, whats the one thing nobody’s ever asked you that you would love to talk about?:

Francis:

My past addiction with tobacco. Everyone has their story but no one other than my business partners really know the details. I am okay with sharing at this point in my life as I no longer see it as a negative but as a choice I made consciously and subconsciously.

When I was 15 years old I was a very good dual athlete; Hockey and Golf. My hockey teammates for the most part were much older than I was. Call it the cool thing to do or however you would like to phrase it, but I became hooked on smokeless tobacco. I was in quick sand and could not get out. A few years lately I successfully quit but unfortunately fell back in just a year later. I still to this day do not know what made me start again. I have been tobacco free for quite some time now, and as I referenced earlier in this interview, I do see the huge role that vaping has played in my ability to be tobacco free!